


Meal Time

by Kitsoa



Category: BIRDMEN - 田辺イエロウ | Tanabe Yellow
Genre: Gen, I love playing with individual dynamics and testing eishi with umino is fun, also... there might be a spoiler allusion--just don't think too hard, birdmen week 2016, now officially a day late but yeah, the warning is because of the blood description, this fic is a little everywhere in terms of tone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 07:56:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8658796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsoa/pseuds/Kitsoa
Summary: For Birdmen Week 2016:Eishi hates camping.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Submission for Birdmen Week 2016! Dedicated to this amazing little fandom. --Day 005: Meal Time

The others were strangely cautious to use the word ‘camping’ around Eishi. A smart decision seeing how if this Bird Club event had been labeled as anything other than an ‘overnight research excursion’ their sour-faced Vice-President would have long called off the plans in an effort to spare himself from the typical festivities. Ah, but the aesthetic was undeniable. Sagisawa had been apt to bring matches. Before them churned a modest little flame upon a bundle of wood. Unnecessary warmth. An ambient simmer of the crackling fire. The static scents of the desolate forest below them.

Camping.

The nice thing about flying to your isolated woodland locale was the variety of choices in sleeping ground. They were thus fortunate to have found a chisel of limestone elevated above the foliage in a manner inaccessible by foot. It was barely a cave but decidedly cleaner (the president had a thing against bugs) than the soil in the throes of the trees. So far their setup was pretty bare. Besides the fire and the pile of travel bags by the stone wall there sat two birdmen of varying levels of enthusiasm.  

Umino slyly ripped open a plastic bag of jumbo marshmallows.

“Nope, put that away.” His voice was flat and froze her promptly, but only with the confidence of a rolling stop. She reached slowly back into the bag, the glow of the campfire increasing the intensity of her gaze, reviewing his reaction. Freedom was her weapon.

“Goodness woman! At least put it with the cracker or whatever, like you’re supposed to.” He bit, bothered by the fact that he was left alone with the girl. They may not be between the walls of his private home, but they were the only ‘humans’ for miles and she was… in her full birdmen transformation-- an allure he only recently recognized as contrasting between forms.

Mouth already stuffed with the treat, Umino shot him a defensive and incredulous look. “What? I’m _starving_.” Her cheeks were puffed out and her words were just barely coherent... Crap that was cute.

Okay, so he was a little famished too. They had been flying for most of the night to find their ideal location,  and with the addition of carrying their supplies, (and they all packed light) they were decidedly running a little low. Hence the reason for Takayama, Kamoda, and Sagisawa’s absence. The idea still brought an uncertain groan to Eishi’s throat as he mentally corrected the label for the missing trio: “The hunting party”.

Like hell was he going to eat a squirrel.

“You brought those for s’mores, they aren’t-- Oh, _hey,_ what did we agree on about the phones?” The resulting light of Umino clicking on the screen was jarring. She was already swiping around the keyboard with a light tapping of her claw.  “There’s like, no service around here…” The way her eyes flicked up to meet his simultaneously affirmed his prediction and silenced his preaching.

“Can you tweet them to hurry up?” There was nothing in her tone to announce any of the displeasure he assumed she’d be carrying. For a moment he had feared an attitude in the fashion of his mother’s.

“Uh- I mean sure, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to distract them…” He imagined the comical scenario of a reverent and focused atmosphere shattering with the mundane complaints of a hangry and telepathic bird kid.

“I guess you’re right…” She sighed into her palm, reaching for a nearby twig to fiddle with. “It sucks that we get hungry all the time…” She was conversational, but started the dialogue with a genuine self-pity.

“Yeah,” Eishi pushed his face into the heel of his hand as well, finding distraction in the flickering shadows on the limestone wall to her left. A wave of weakness pressed comfortably against his cheeks opening any guarded floodgates against her. Outside of the moment he’d probably blame the apprehension of an awkward silence with this girl.  “I just hate it when my mom has to point it out. Though it _is_ strange that I’m eating her terrible cooking so much.” He forced a huffing smile after evaluating that his language was a little dower.

Umino found a smile with that musing, unsure of what to interpret. “Ah, but you can pass it off for being I dunno... a ‘growing boy’ and be done.”

He huffed a wry grin. “Growing _something_.” He flexed his wings out for punctuation before relaxing them along his shoulders.

“My mom’s been more on the nagging side for me. Most girls my age can have a _little_ fun… you know, going to cake shops and stuff, but she’s been cracking down on my snacking…”

Eishi realized with sneaking jolt that he was getting a keen glance into the systematic woes of the adolescent female. The thought prodded along his head like a casual weight. From the pressure seeped the phantom grip of his familiar anger, more usually directed towards the faceless mob of society that impacted himself. What business did Umino’s mother have putting those concerns in her daughter?

“ _Tch_.” He could feel himself projecting, an unfortunately easy thing to do. “Well she should try maintaining this metabolism. -- Toss me one.”

She was a little surprised, but suppressed her coy smile as she complied, reaching into the plastic bag beside her wings. His claws pierced the spongy texture and he shoved the marshmallow in his mouth with a swift motion. The sweetness assaulted him without mercy and he felt the regret well up in him as he tore his teeth through the treat, one gnashing chew at a time.  

“It’s a little inconvenient.” She continued with humor.

“Slight understatement.” Memories of his mother’s insufferable voice basking in the silent compliment of her son’s empty plate flashed in his mind’s eye with irritation. The treat left a fire of tingling sweetness on its way down.

“I mean I’m usually _dying_ after a blackout. And I don’t even have to transform for me to want to down a carton of ice cream.”

“That’s interesting.” He supplied with an exaggerated interest. “Might be worth getting some readings. Should I tell the Professor?” The ghost of the marshmallow was starting to bounce back into the appealing territory. He was tempted to ask for another.

“I mean I’m not _that_ curious. Just annoyed.”

“Well there’s a lot of small things about all this that’s not to like… for example: changing out for gym.” He mused outside the moment on how easy his words came to him. The flow of the conversation was foreign enough to inspire some social vertigo, threatening but impossible to stop.

She groaned with exaggeration. “Not just gym! I’ve pretty much had to throw away a wardrobe of tops because they show the darn mark.”

“Dang. Makes me wonder if we have to change our personas so we can explain them off as gang tattoos.”

“Oh my poor mother.” Her delivery flipped a delightful switch in him and he found himself barking a laugh. She smiled.

 _‘Is that laughing? We finally having some camping fun Karasuma?’_ The tweet stopped the conversing two in their tracks. Sagisawa’s taunting singsong tones rang out louder in their heads than the sweeping sounds of the party’s approaching wing flaps.

“Ei-chan!”

Kamoda’s eager shouts were closer than he thought as well. Soon enough, a large mass of black and green plopped between the casting shadows of the campfire, the hulking birdman consumed with a dorky grin.

“Look at the catch!” He pushed forward one of his hand, between his talons a decently sized fish lay skewered. His other arm seemed to be holding a bundle of similarly sized prey.

Well what an honest surprise.

“Wow” Umino cooed with a hungry sparkle in her eyes.

“But you’re like terrible at fishing.” Eishi blurted. He had a healthy sense of skepticism, hence the joke of having him on the ‘hunting party’. “I mean I’ve seen you. Fourth grade field trip... ” He trailed in a knowing prompt.

Kamoda dropped his bundle into an aptly cupped wing, letting the slimy contents squish against each other audibly. “That was not a fishing trip so it doesn’t even count.”

“You fell into the pond trying to take home a catfish.”

“It was for luck!”

“Hey now.” Sagisawa piped in with an amiable tone. “I think his current catch begs to differ to your prior expectations Karasuma.” The newly landed birdman stepped closer to the campfire, his own bundle of fish tentatively wrapped in his wing mass. Eishi perked up at his arrival.

“Where’s Takayama?”

“He went on his own hours ago, following a different… ‘scent’ I guess.” Sagisawa waved the explanation with an uncommitted hand, not really understanding the details but dishing out the best he could.

“I can’t believe we’re really ‘living off the land’...” Eishi groaned.

“Well we can’t carry that much food in a flight…”

“But s’mores ingredients are fair…” He grumbled. “Does anyone even know how to clean a fish?” Eishi looked at Kamoda with hope. He was actually a sufficient cook in recent years since his sister moved away. The bald boy made an apologetic face.

“No, I mean I cook, but nothing extravagant…”

“Ah…” All eyes turned to Umino who started with hesitance. “My… dad taught me how.”

Sagisawa’s expression visibly softened.

“That’s a relief. I was getting worried I’d have to sink my teeth into these things raw.” Kamoda’s delivery of that possibility fell a little flat with the hungry bird kids surrounding him.

“Oh goodness.” Sagisawa shivered in response, a look of pure disgust twisting his features. The poor pretty boy managed to twist Eishi’s irritation up a notch but in a decidedly more potent manner than simple urban frustrations.

“I can make a fillet knife out of wing mass…” Umino mused. Her normal energy seemed strangely sober as she direct her attention to her right hand. Behind her rippled her wings as she attempted to focus the manipulation elsewhere. The flock watched in anticipation, knowing full well that Umino’s main area of struggle with her abilities was the nuance of wing mass manipulation. While changes to the wing shapes came as easy as breathing to everyone, the lack of mass on other parts of their suits limited the electrical network the substance provided. Umino had the least to work with the thinnest suit and therefore the hardest time.

An embarrassed blush dusted her cheeks as she silently pushed her concentration in towards failing results. Only a slight creeping tendril of black from her forearm snaked forward as her brow furrowed deeper and deeper.

Being the closest, Eishi pivoted his sitting position forward, snatching her hand out of the view of her laser focus. Call it sympathy, but her frustration ignited his own. She had a jolt of surprise, shaken from her intensity, but it was Eishi who had to stifle his gasp.

In his mind’s eye flashed a scene, superimposed. The sights and smells rushed through him as well in a manner not unlike a violent swimming pool dunk. With it was the image of a man with a warm and encouraging smile, steadily guiding a small hand on how to hold a fillet knife. Her tiny fingers could barely find a constitution on the handle, but his larger palms engulfed hers easily. There was so much care and caution as he shook the tool with her for emphasis, caught in a wordless explanation. All throughout, the blade stood in uncommitted focus, unable to resist the pull of his blue eyes.

Eishi let go. The mortifying chill of being caught red-handed made the descent of his guilty hand painfully slow. His mouth formed a small ‘o’ as he peaked at her expression.

Umino blinked, her mouth a small line but otherwise presenting no sense of violation or unease. Her hand hung limp in the air as she processed, waiting.

Eishi clenched a shallow breath in discomfort. The speedy commitment of his first attempt ignored the logic of the situation. Him grabbing her hand. There were romantic relationships barely that far. Heat crawled up his neck and seared brighter as he realized the others were watching.

Carefully, he placed his hand back into hers and allowed his network to connect in a more subtle fire of synapses. He let out a lungful of air slowly, tentatively taking the reigns, commanding along with her the movement of mass from her wings.

“The key.” He began after the long silence. His eyes were closed as he focused remotely. Voice low in his coaching. “Is to deliberately pull from the wings, focus on moving it down your arm…”

There was a finesse to this control that he had spent far too long analyzing early after their transformation. Yet it was the aspect that Takayama found simply on instinct. In this case, a simple touch assist could have provided the boost she needed to overcompensate for the lack of nuanced control but he chose to coach her briefly on how to overcome that current disadvantage. Soon enough he let go, just as she formed a narrow blade from her palm, positioned so she can wrap her hand around it.

“Thank you.” There was a hint of wonder in her words.

“You did most of it by yourself.”

She smiled before returning her attention to pile of aquatic game the two had procured.

“I hope it’s enough…” Sagisawa offered with a grimace. “Our method took a little time.”

“I’m still curious as to how.” Eishi rocked back onto the heels of his palms while Sagisawa took that as an invitation to sit beside him. “I am assuming you were the brains in the operation.”

Sagisawa hummed. “Yes, but I will say one of those was caught by Kamoda with his bare fist.”

Eishi raised his brow. “Impressive.”

“But we actually made our wings into nets believe it or not.”

“That is smart.”

“It helped that I read up a little about that species of fish and their eating habits.”

Eishi’s face dropped. “On your phone?”

The president blinked twice. “Yeah. Problem?”

“Uh!” Eishi shot him with a guttural huff. “What part of ‘save our batteries’ don’t you understand? And-- and how are you even getting service much less data?!”

“Come on, there are four phones between us what’s--” Sagisawa paused mid sentence, his face fell flat instantly as he sharpened his focus. It took less than a moment to realize why.

Footsteps. Heavy. The clattering of small rocks falling to the earth.

“Um…” Kamoda filled the empty air with his voice as he looked up from assisting Umino with the diligent fish cleaning process. For a moment Eishi was boggled enough to dart a paranoid eye around the campsite, scanning for the fastest way to remove the evidence and scram. All the while the steps getting closer.

“Oh my gosh, relax. It’s Takayama.” Umino said, in the middle of skinning the fish.

Well he usually _flies_.

Sure enough Takayama’s form hurled himself onto the ledge of their limestone campground with a perfect form landing. Then without even standing upright, the new arrival seemed to lean over the ledge, his wings stretching back from whence he came, reaching. In the dim light it was hard to tell what he was doing, but Eishi assumed he was pulling up something large… something incredibly large-- he corrected as the dark mound poked above the ledge. That explains the mode of transport. He hiked it back onto his shoulders with a swift lift of his wings, the substance than shifting to form custom carrying restraints.

“What the…”

Takayama then stepped into the campfire light. Eishi couldn’t hold back his horrified gasp.

Along the side of his torso and down his right leg was a thick trail of blood, almost black on the canvas of his suit, but shimmering in the flame light. The talons of his free hands dripped with the liquid, it covered his hand like a glove. The red colored accents along his ribs stretched wider with the drying splash across his chest, all while splattering droplets peppered the skin of his face.   

Upon his shoulder was a dead buck, its impressive set of antlers coiled with the black tendrils of the birdman’s wings.

“Holy shh...”

“Takayama!”

“Woah!”

“What is that?!”

They jumped collectively, the arrival looking un-phased. Eishi’s concern won.

“Our meal.” He answered, taking their stunned silence as an opportunity to remove the burden. The carcass fell from his shoulder with an unceremonious ‘plop’. Eishi felt his stomach turn. The marshmallow hardened in his gut.

Eishi didn’t remember much about the bus accident, even to this day. He remembered how red the sky was, the viscous pool of blood around him, the groaning steam from the crying engine, his best friend strewn across the bus ceiling completely lifeless, the heralding sound of inching wing flaps... In that scene, before Takayama’s sliced arm fed him his final human meal, he remembered those red eyes. They bore into his fading consciousness with a magnetism, judging with a hidden desperation. With the monstrous silhouette shivered the primal conclusion in Eishi’s broken body. Death. The assertion of some unseen foodchain. Hungry eyes consuming the vulnerable prey. Oh that was fear. Unadulterated, useless fear.

The encoring emotion shocked though him for an instant. He swallowed thickly trying to will his rationality back into place.

“Ah-- um… I-I can’t… cook that.” Umino had abandoned her wingmass fillet knife, probably unconsciously. Her brow was twisted up, trying to suppress her horror at the disturbing image. “I mean I don’t know how…” She flicked her eyes to the corner.

“I… hope you didn’t hunt that thing…” Sagisawa said cautiously, a piercing red gaze glancing over to the game and its convoy. A useless gesture, as Takayama never lied. Eishi assumed the white birdman found the triggering of his ability defensive. “Adrenaline makes the meat chewy.”

“We can’t eat that!” Kamoda blurted, visibly scandalized by the dead deer before them. “It’s… it’s….”

“No different than the fish.” Eishi completed, having gathered his bearings. “But really, what’s the story?” He tried to make the question sound more casual than tense with mediocre success.

Takayama locked gazes with his leader. There was something faint on his lips. Knowing, but naively open-minded. The eyes, while the same shade as that fearful memory, held a different gravity.

 **This bothers you.** An observation, it rung exclusive to Eishi. The Bellwether, more prepared, now allowed himself to react with a more familiar sense of frustration at Takayama’s peculiar approach rather than his wavering human appearance. After all, the awakened birdman was the ‘closest’ to their sire in that respect.

 _‘Yeah, death is a thing, been there-- it’s the execution of it that matters.’_ He sniped back in a tweet that the others perked up to, albeit without the context. The lack of mouth motion allowed him to grimace with an accusatory glare.   _‘I mean, you couldn’t have killed it more neatly?’_

“I didn’t kill him.” He said aloud. “At least, not initially. I found him pinned by a bear trap.” He knelt down by the deer carcass and lifted one of its hind legs up. In a surprising twist, it was a dripping stub. Kamoda and Umino recoiled visibly. “He couldn’t survive with an injury like that… even he knew that much…”

Eishi recalled the dying whale. The depth of animal understanding was an impression he was sure to marvel at for years. The memory triggered another question.

“How did it die?” Peacefully? In agony? On its own terms like the sea mammal from before? The specification was more a test from Eishi. How much had changed? What was the empathy in such an action while the corpses of humans in a landslide were nothing but fertilizer?

“Quickly.” The gaping hole in the deer’s chest suddenly became apparent, explaining the shower of blood. The fear returned with a sudden vengeance.

The power it took to stab his hand through the creature’s sternum… the gall behind that decision… His imagination soared with a nightmare of possibilities. A more human form in place of the animal (though what was the difference?).

And here he thought he could pacify the scene with his question.

Sagisawa came to the rescue. “Well the meat is probably tough.” He concluded in a drastic shift of tone. “We probably can’t use it all but we should take what we need. Bring it over here, you’re doing most of the labor.”

Takayama complied, dragging the game by the legs a short distance to the limestone wall.

“Bear traps mean people right?”

“There aren’t any humans for miles.” Matter-of-fact. It didn’t seem to affect the miracle service providers for Umino and Sagisawa’s phones. Eishi took the warbled to normalcy as his cue to scoot over to the fish prepping work station. With a nearby stick (intended for early s’mores) he started propping the white meat along the branch, trying to will his appetite back.

Oh, he just _hated_ camping.

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely intended on going a little further with this little shot. I swear. There might be another camping drabble in the future. Also, I'm aware s'mores probably aren't a big thing in Japan but they're sweet and it's Umino. Furthermore, I didn't want to specify the fish type. It saved me a google search.
> 
> I cover a lot of thing here. Feminist!Eishi, Sociopath!Takayama, Umino-Eishi dynamic?? (will it work?), magic cellphones! hunting moral ambiguity, appetite headcanons...
> 
> I have a lot of things to say...


End file.
